Monday, June 3, 2013

Shahrishtani said that the US had already assured Iraqi officials that it would not use Iraqi airspace in order to attack Iran.

"The (Americans) have assured us that they will never violate Iraqi airspace or Iraqi sovereignty by using our airspace to attack any of our neighbors," Shahristani told AFP.

"We have also warned Israel that if they violate Iraqi airspace, they will have to bear the consequences," he added.

Shahrishtani said that Iraq, which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, passed the warning to the Jewish state through a third country. He failed to elaborate on what the Iraqi response to an Israeli incursion of its airspace would be, saying, "Obviously, Iraq wouldn't be disclosing its reaction, to allow Israel to take that into account."

The comments marked the first instance in which Iraq has issued a public warning to Israel over a potential attack against Iran. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is a Shi'ite who has increased economic ties and cooperation with Iran in recent years.

The New York Times reported in August that Iraq had been helping Iran skirt financial sanctions imposed because of its nuclear program.

In some cases, Iraqi government officials are turning a blind eye to trade with Iran, while other officials in Baghdad are directly profiting from the activities -- with several of them having close ties to Maliki, the Times claimed.

In Alaska, scores of volcanoes and strange lava flows have escaped scrutiny for decades, shrouded by lush forests and hidden under bobbing coastlines.

In the past three years, 12 new volcanoes have been discovered in Southeast Alaska, and 25 known volcanic vents and lava flows re-evaluated, thanks to dogged work by geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Forest Service. Sprinkled across hundreds of islands and fjords, most of the volcanic piles are tiny cones compared to the super-duper stratovolcanoes that parade off to the west, in the Aleutian Range.

But the Southeast's volcanoes are in a class by themselves, the researchers found. A chemical signature in the lava flows links them to a massive volcanic field in Canada. Unusual patterns in the lava also point to eruptions under, over and alongside glaciers, which could help scientists pinpoint the size of Alaska's mountain glaciers during past climate swings.

This is no time to be complacent. Massive economic problems are erupting all over the globe, but most people seem to believe that everything is going to be just fine. In fact, a whole bunch of recent polls and surveys show that the American people are starting to feel much better about how the U.S. economy is performing. Unfortunately, the false prosperity that we are currently enjoying is not going to last much longer. Just look at what is happening in Europe. The eurozone is now in the midst of the longest recession that it has ever experienced. Just look at what is happening over in Asia. Economic growth in India is the lowest that it has been in a decade and the Japanese financial system is beginning to spin wildly out of control. One of the only places on the entire planet where serious economic problems have not already erupted is in the United States, and that is only because we have "kicked the can down the road" by recklessly printing money and by borrowing money at an unprecedented rate. Unfortunately, the "sugar high" produced by those foolish measures is starting to wear off. We are going to experience a massive amount of economic pain along with the rest of the world - it is just a matter of time.

But for the moment, there are a lot of skeptics out there.

For the moment, there are a lot of people that are declaring that the problems of the past have been fixed and that we are heading for incredibly bright economic times ahead.

Unfortunately, those people appear to be purposely ignoring the economic horror that is breaking out all over the globe.

The following are 18 signs that massive economic problems are erupting all over the planet...

#1 The eurozone is now in the midst of its longest recession ever. Economic activity in the eurozone has declined for six quarters in a row.

"I've sent CVs everywhere, I come to the unemployment agency every day, for 3 or 4 hours to look for work as a truck driver and there's never anything," said 42-year old Djamel Sami, who has been unemployed for a year, leaving a job agency in Paris.

#7 Unemployment in the eurozone as a whole has just hit a brand new all-time record high of 12.2 percent.

#8 Youth unemployment continues to soar to unprecedented heights in Europe. The following is from an article that was recently posted on the website of the Guardian that detailed how bad things are getting in some of the worst countries...

In Greece, 62.5% of young people are out of work, in Spain it's 56.4%, then Portugal with 42.5%, and then Italy with 40.5%.

#9 Youth unemployment is being partially blamed for the worst rioting that Sweden has seen in many years. The following is how the Daily Mail described the riots...

Sweden is reeling after a third night of rioting in largely run-down immigrant areas of the capital Stockholm.

In the last 48 hours violence has spread to at least ten suburbs with mobs of youths torching hundreds of cars and clashing with police.

It is Sweden's worst disorder in years and has shocked the country and provoked a debate on how Sweden is coping with youth unemployment and an influx of immigrants.

#10 An astounding 10 percent of all banking deposits were pulled out of banks in Cyprus during the month of April alone.

#12 Suddenly Australia is experiencing some tremendous economic challenges. The following quotes are from a recent Zero Hedge article...

-“We’re seeing a much sharper contraction in the Australian economy than we’d anticipated four or five months ago”. Coffey MD, John Douglas. The engineering group has seen its shares, which traded above $4 in 2007, hit 10c last week.

-“By 10am, the Fitness First gym in the city is packed full of brokers who’ve had a gutful of sitting at their desk doing nothing – salary cuts are starting and next it will be jobs” Perth broker

-“Oh mate, the funding market is dead. You are now seeing a few deeply discounted rights issues for those that are reaching desperate levels ….. liquidity has completely disappeared” Perth broker

#13 The financial system in Japan is beginning to spin wildly out of control. The Japanese stock market has now declined about 15 percent from the peak, and many believe that the yen will continue to get weaker and that interest rates in Japan will start to rise significantly.

#14 Global cash flow is declining at a rate not seen since the last recession. This indicates that we could be headed for a global credit crunch.

#15 Real wages continue to decline in the United States. Even though we are being told that the U.S. is experiencing an "economy recovery", real weekly earnings have declined from $297.79 in 2010 to $295.49 in 2011 to $294.83 in 2012. (The preceding calculation is based on 1982-1984 dollars)

#16 Wall Street is buzzing about the fact that "the Hindenburg Omen" appeared at the end of last week. So exactly what is "the Hindenburg Omen"? The following are the criteria that are used to determine whether it has appeared or not...

1. The daily number of NYSE new 52 Week Highs and the daily number of new 52 Week Lows must both be greater than 2.2 percent of total NYSE issues traded that day.

2. The smaller of these numbers is greater than or equal to 69 (68.772 is 2.2% of 3126). This is not a rule but more like a checksum. This condition is a function of the 2.2% of the total issues.

3. That the NYSE 10 Week moving average is rising.

4. That the McClellan Oscillator ( a market breadth indicator used to evaluate the rate of money entering or leaving the market and interpretively indicate overbought or oversold conditions of the market)is negative on that same day.

5. That new 52 Week Highs cannot be more than twice the new 52 Week Lows (however it is fine for new 52 Week Lows to be more than double new 52 Week Highs).

When the Hindenburg Omen makes an appearance, it supposedly means that the U.S. stock market is likely to experience a serious decline within the next 40 days.

#17 As I wrote about the other day, the SentimenTrader Smart/Dumb Money Index is now the lowest that it has been in more than two years. That means that lots of "smart money" has been getting out of the market and lots of "dumb money" has been pouring in.

#18 Margin debt on the New York Stock Exchange has set a new all-time high. The following is from a recent Market Oracle article...

Margin debt—that’s the amount of money borrowed to purchase stocks—on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) reached its all-time high in April. Margin debt on the NYSE registered at $384.3 billion as the key stock indices hit new record-highs. (Source: New York Stock Exchange web site, last accessed May 29, 2013.) The highest margin debt ever reached prior to this was in July of 2007, when it stood just above $381.0 billion. At that time, just like today, the key stock indices were near their peaks and “buy now before it’s too late” was the prominent theme of the day

Whenever margin debt spikes like this, a stock market crash almost always follows. If you doubt this, just check out the chart in this article.

Wall Street has had a good couple of years, but it has been a "false prosperity" that has been pumped up by reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve. Just like all of the other stock market bubbles that we have seen in recent years, this one is going to burst too. And as Marc Faber recently pointed out, this bubble has been particularly beneficial to the wealthy...

The Fed has been flooding the system with money. The problem is the money doesn't flow into the system evenly. It doesn't increase economic activity and asset prices in concert. Instead, it creates dangerous excesses in countries and asset classes. Money-printing fueled the colossal stock-market bubble of 1999-2000, when the Nasdaq more than doubled, becoming disconnected from economic reality. It fueled the housing bubble, which burst in 2008, and the commodities bubble. Now money is flowing into the high-end asset market - things like stocks, bonds, art, wine, jewelry, and luxury real estate.

Money-printing boosts the economy of the people closest to the money flow. But it doesn't help the worker in Detroit, or the vast majority of the middle class. It leads to a widening wealth gap. The majority loses, and the minority wins.

The fact that the U.S. stock market has set new all-time record high after new all-time record high in recent months means very little. At this point, the stock market has become completely divorced from economic reality. When this current bubble bursts, the adjustment is going to be very painful. Wall Street will likely whine and complain and ask for more bailouts, but they may find that authorities are not nearly as sympathetic this time.

Much of the rest of the world is already experiencing the next major wave of the economic collapse. Reckless money printing by the Fed and reckless borrowing and spending by the federal government may have delayed the inevitable in the United States for a little while, but those measures have also made our long-term problems even worse.

There was one piece of advice that Ben Bernanke included in hiscommencement speech to students at Princeton recently that I thought was particularly ironic...

"Don't be afraid to let the drama play out."

Will he take his own advice when the next great financial crisis strikes the United States?

That seems very unlikely.

Unfortunately, things are not going to be so easy to fix this next time.

“With a sense of terror has just learnt it’s been snowing in Kemerovo. What’s next?”

“Tornado in the US. Floods in Czech Republic. SNOW in Kemerovo!”

The city in South Siberia is situated on 55°22'17.58" north latitude but even for that region -2 Celsius on June 2 morning is over the top. The region has seasonal inland climate, which means really cold winters and very hot summers.

This spring has been sort of cold in the Kemerovo Region, which witnessed snow in early May and an emergency extension of the heating season. No wonder that people have been waiting for warm summer days just like for manna from heaven, but instead got snowflakes.

But the locals are full of determination to recalculate sowing season schedule and plant kitchen gardens as usual and against all odds, probably because over 70 percent of Russia’s territory is the area of risk farming and people are used to encounter hardships of the kind.

Many assume when God created the Sun and the Moon that He did so for light, heat, gravity, and other natural mechanisms. While those facts seem obvious, when looking at Genesis 1:14, we learn of four other purposes behind why the lights in the heavens were created and placed where they are. The Bible says these are for “signs,” “seasons,” “days,” and “years.”

The Hebrew word for signs in this context is owth, a word meaning a “miraculous sign,” “omen,” or “warning.” It signifies, among other things, that God created the heavenly bodies to communicate important matters at particular times to His covenant people.

The next reason God created the sun and the moon is for “seasons.” Again, in our Western mindset, we figure God is talking about winter, spring, summer, and fall. This is the farthest from the truth. In Hebrew, the word here is mow’edand is accurately translated as “an appointed time” or “divine appointment” especially related to “sacred seasons” or Feast days. This same Hebrew word is translated into English in Leviticus 23 as “feast” where it talks about the Feasts of the Lord. At first, these two words—appointments and feasts—seem about as far apart as you can get. This is why one needs to keep the Hebrew language in perspective so as not to miss the deeper conveyances of this text. The wordmow’ed implies that God has a day timer or calendar on which He keeps predetermined “appointments” with human history and that are connected with His Feasts or Holy Days. For example, in the Book of Revelation it says that the Messiah was slain “from the foundations of the world.” This means God the Father knew the year, the month, the day, and the exact time His Son would die and how this event would be played out in fulfillment of the Levitical feasts of Israel.

Finally, God declares that the sun and the moon were created to determine “days and years.” Obviously, this has nothing to do with our modern calendar, which was created by a pagan Roman ruler and is based on the sun. The Muslim calendar is based on the moon. But the biblical calendar—the one that God uses according to Genesis—is based on the sunand the moon. So when the Scripture refers to “days and years” in Genesis 1:14, it is pointing to biblical days and years or “holy days” as well as Shemittah years and Jubilee years (every seventh year the land in Israel was to rest. This is why the Jewish people went into captivity because they did not observe the seventh year. Every fiftieth year was to be a year of Jubilee when captives were set free and received their land back).

With this in mind, a whole new discovery is made concerning how God created the sun and the moon and the stars as harbingers or “signal-senders” of His appointed times. This is confirmed throughout the Bible in places like the books of Joel, Isaiah, Revelation, as well as Jesus, Himself, in the Gospels confirming there would be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars that would herald the last days.

While solar and lunar eclipses are common occurrences and for the most part have no great prophetic significance, when they fall on the biblical Feast days, we should pay close attention. In Revelation 6:12, the Bible declares that the sun will become black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon as red as blood. Most scholars believe this important end-times sign is speaking of solar and lunar eclipses. The significance of a total solar eclipse or total lunar eclipse, if it happened on one of God’s Feast days would be a powerful message. Knowing this, be advised there are four total blood moons coming, back to back, right in a row, all falling on Feast days. Equally incredible is how within the very same timeframe, two solar eclipses are scheduled to arrive. Read that again and let the significance of these comments sink in. Prophetically speaking, we are talking about the equivalent of six grand-slam homeruns in a row—a mathematical improbability that stands out against the randomness of natural cycles and strongly suggests a miraculous sign or “omen” of intelligent design is coming. Of significance to this book is how these “grand slams” are set to unfold between the years 2012–2016, specifically 2014 and 2015.

When examining NASA’s website, we find these specific types or strings of total eclipses are called a “tetrad” and are very rare. According to their own calculations, a similar string of four total lunar eclipses did not happen at all in the 1800s, 1700s, or even the 1600s. Amazingly, in the 1500s it happened around seven times but not once did all four eclipses fall on the Jewish Feast days. When was the last time four blood moons not only occurred back to back but fell on the Feasts? The shocking dates were 1967 and 1968 when Israel recaptured Jerusalem! What about the time before that? Right on the heels of Israel becoming a nation in May of 1948. The following two years in 1949 and 1950 again saw four blood moons on Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles and then again on Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles! In other words, not only were there four blood moons in a row, but all four of them fell on the Feast days and were accompanied by historically prophetic implications of divine proportions.

What does all this have to do with the future and the timespan 2012–2016? From the Books of Revelation and Joel (2:31), we understand that the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord. In Exodus (chapter 12), God told Moses that Passover (roughly March-April in the Gregorian calendar) would be the point at which the religious year would begin. It just so happens that after the two blood moons on Passover and Tabernacles in 2014, this Jewish New Year in 2015 will be met with a total solar eclipse. Two weeks later on Passover we have the next total lunar eclipse. Then on the Feast of Trumpets, also known as Rosh HaShana, there is a partial solar eclipse followed two weeks later by the next total lunar eclipse on the Feast of Tabernacles. There will not be another such tetrad of four blood moons landing on biblical holidays this century. Keep your eyes on global events as these blood moons mark God’s prophetic calendar. Of course, only time will tell, but these suggested apocalyptic scenarios may soon begin falling like dominoes across the world scene in anticipation of the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Deeper Secrets: The Watchers and 33, 2012, 2016

In May of 2005, I commissioned the late Christian researcher and genius David Flynn to write another study for my daily news service (www.RaidersNewsUpdate.com) based on mutual research we were investigating at that time. The article, “An Occult Translation of the Roswell Event: Countdown to 2012,” was truly unprecedented and later formed the basis of Flynn’s presentation at the 2005 Ancient of Days Conference in Roswell, New Mexico. The feature article has since been quoted hundreds of times by media and republished in magazines and print publications around the world, yet what the extraordinary findings actually foretell remains hidden to most of the world.

Like Dr. I. D. E. Thomas, Dr. Jacques F. Vallée, Chuck Missler, and others, Flynn became fascinated with the mysterious connection between Watchers, so-called “aliens,” the coming of Antichrist, the Mayan date 2012, and the hidden occult aspiration of Freemasons and other Illuminatus related to these subjects.

European mysticism was not dead at the time the United States of America was founded. The hand of the mysteries controlled in the establishment of the new government for the signature of the mysteries may still be seen on the Great Seal of the United States of America. Careful analysis of the seal discloses a mass of occult and Masonic symbols, chief among them, the so-called American eagle.… The American eagle upon the Great Seal is but a conventionalized phoenix.[i]

“Phoenix,” the last word of Hall’s statement of the founding of America, was key to the “secret destiny” of civilization, for as occultists understand, the word “phoenix” is derivative of “Phoenicians” and refers to the ancient people who inhabited the very land recorded in the book of Enoch as the entry point for Watcher influence from Mt. Hermon in Phoenicia. Intriguingly, the consonants in Hebrew that make up the word “Hermon” are ch-r-m or the noun cherem, meaning “devoted to destruction.” And as Elizabeth van Buren acknowledged in The Secret of the Illuminati, the great significance of this Phoenician Watcher location could be understood through the occult value of the numbers three and thirty-three when combined with the most important science of Freemasonry, navigation, and sacred location.[ii]

The compass and square, the most visible emblems of Masonry, are the symbols of this navigation and mapmaking process. The number three is essential because without the geometry of the three-sided triangle, establishing location and distance on a map (“triangulation”) is impossible. Navigation not only predicts the destination of a traveler on the Earth but also the time the traveler will arrive. As the navigator can use increments of Earth’s latitude and longitude to determine location in space and time, these increments can be measured in the Earth itself according to mystics to reveal the appointed time of humanity’s destiny. This is one of the main reasons the number thirty-three and the compass and square are such important symbols of the illumined elite.

With this in mind, Flynn made the unprecedented disclosure that 33.33 degrees of the great circle of the Earth represents 2,012 nautical miles, the identical number at the end of the Mayan calendar. Flynn further revealed that Mount Hermon in Phoenicia, the first location of the descent of the Watchers, lies precisely at 33.33 degrees north, 33.33 degrees east, 2,012 miles from the equator, and 2,012 miles from the prime meridian, a location of Mt. Hermon in longitude based on the Paris 0 meridian 2.20 degrees east of Greenwich.

To be even more accurate, the number of nautical miles in 33.33 degrees of the Earth is 2,012 “.9.” This actually corresponds more precisely with the ending year date of the Mayan calendar—December 21, 2012.

Did the chosen location of the first connection of Watchers on Mt. Hermon at 33.33 degrees north and 33.33 east set in time the commencement of a luciferian plan for a final New World Order beginning in 2012? In light of the ancient history of Mt. Hermon and the Mayan buildings and cities having been intentionally aligned with the Pleiades and Orion Nebula, the return to Earth of the god these terrestrial and celestial locations are historically connected with—Apollo/Osiris/Nimrod—literally seems to have been set in stone. The highest sacred number (thirty-three) of the occultists who encoded the return of Apollo on the Great Seal of the United States also: 1) equals the exact location where the Watchers first descended to Earth and; 2) triangulates the mile measurement 2012—the end date of the Mayan countdown to the return of their bloodthirsty god.

A related matter that is equally disturbing and perhaps validates the concerns of Dr. Thomas, Vallée, Flynn, and others whose research produced repetitive connections between Watchers and so-called “probing aliens,” is the most celebrated ufological location on Earth—the impact site near Roswell, New Mexico, which sits incredibly at 33 degrees north latitude, at a distance 2,012 miles from the equator! Furthermore, when the latitude of the Roswell impact site, 33 degrees north, is multiplied by the universal mathematical constant pi (3.1415926572…), the result is 104 degrees, the longitude of the impact site!

Scientists at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) know that a radio message from intelligent extraterrestrial life would use such redundant universal mathematical constants, which are not dependent on calibration systems, but on ratios. Any signal coming from space that has these numbers would stand out against the randomness in the background of space noise and would define itself as intelligent and deliberate. This is the case with the location of the Roswell incident, as the odds against a crash location occurring “by chance” precisely at the whereabouts that are the product of pi x 33 are astronomical…on the order of millions to one. The location appears to have been chosen to show deliberate and intelligent coordinates related to the occult values thirty-three (= the Masonic prophecy) and 2012 (= the year the god returned) in precise parallel to the fixed location where Watchers first descended.

It might seem beyond mere chance therefore that the United States recovered the debris and “alien” bodies of the Roswell crash on the Fourth of July, 1947. America was founded on the same date in 1776 (also the year the Order of the Illuminati was established), chosen by the elite behind the formation of America for a special reason, which we discussed earlier, related to 33.33 as the ultimate number of earthly luciferian government. Is it therefore coincidence that important ancient structures were built around the world on or near the Earth’s thirty-third parallel—including Great Pyramids, Megiddo, Tyre (where Ezekiel compared the ancient king to Lucifer), the Temple of Marduk, Babylon, Baalbeck, and dozens more? Reason may be shed in the book of Revelation concerning why this number in particular seems to be so important to occultists, ancient pagans, and the messengers of Mt. Hermon and Roswell:

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon.… And his tail drew the third part [33.33 percent] of the [angels] of heaven, and did cast them to the earth. (Revelation 12:3–4)

Of course, the correlation between the Masonic number thirty-three and the year 2012, plus the matching of these numbers to the exact coordinates of the arrival of Watchers on Mt. Hermon and the date that the Maya predicted the return of the gods in spirit or form, could be nothing more than a coincidence. An amazing and mathematically incomprehensible coincidence…and yet the rabbit hole goes deeper…

Three of the world’s nuclear powers — China, India and Pakistan — have increased their arsenals over the past year, while the other five have cut their strength or kept it stable, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said Monday.

China now has 250 nuclear warheads against 240 in 2012, while Pakistan has increased its warheads by about 10 to between 100 and 120 and India has also added roughly 10 for a total of 90 to 110, SIPRI said in its annual report.

According to SIPRI, the arms race is all the more disturbing because of what the institute called a ‘fragile’ peace in Asia, characterised by growing tensions since 2008 between India and Pakistan, China and Japan, and the two Koreas, among others.

‘While states have avoided direct conflict with each other and have stopped supporting insurgent movements on each other’s territory, decades-old suspicions linger and economic integration has not been followed up with political integration,’ SIPRI said.

Only the two old superpowers have cut their warheads, Russia reducing its number from 10,000 to 8,500, and the United States scaling back from 8,000 to 7,700.

The warheads controlled by France stayed at 300, while Britain’s remained at 225, and Israel’s at 80.

SIPRI acknowledged that the figures were to a large extent estimates, as the nuclear powers aren’t equally transparent, China being totally opaque, and Russia gradually becoming less open.

SIPRI does not count North Korea and Iran as nuclear powers yet, as their respective programmes are still considered in their early stages.

While the global total of warheads was down, SIPRI said it did not translate into a significantly diminished nuclear threat.

‘Once again there was little to inspire hope that the nuclear weapon-possessing states are genuinely willing to give up their nuclear arsenals. The long-term modernisation programmes under way in these states suggest that nuclear weapons are still a marker of international status and power,’ said SIPRI Senior Researcher Shannon Kile.

Efforts to reduce arsenals of chemical and biological weapons have also been slow, according to SIPRI, a long-time advocate of abolishing weapons of mass destruction.

The United States and Russia have not destroyed all their chemical weapons in 2012 as promised, and Syria has said it is prepared to use them in the case of foreign attack.

The report also said China has overtaken Britain as the world’s fifth largest arms exporter after the United States, Russia, Germany and France.

At a news conference before a trip to Morocco, he said the protests were organised by extremists and accused the opposition of provoking "his citizens".

The protests initially targeted plans to build on a treasured Istanbul park.

They have spread into nationwide anti-government unrest. Protesters clashed with police again on Monday after more overnight violence in Istanbul.

Police used tear gas to stop a group of demonstrators marching on the prime minister's office in Istanbul, the private Dogan news agency reports.

Officers also reportedly fired teargas and water cannon at hundreds of demonstrators in the capital Ankara on Monday.

Mr Erdogan said during a televised news conference: "There are those attending these events organised by extremists. This is not about Gezi Park anymore. These are organised events with affiliations both within Turkey and abroad.

"The main opposition party CHP has provoked my innocent citizens. Those who make news [and] call these events the Turkish Spring do not know Turkey."

"If there are different opinions, different situations, different points of view and dissent, there is nothing more natural that being able to voice those differences," he was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.

"The messages delivered with good intentions have been received."

Protesters say the Turkish government is becoming increasingly authoritarian.

They fear Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) is trying to impose conservative Islamic values on the officially secular country and infringe on their personal freedoms, correspondents say.

Officials say more than 1,700 people have been arrested in demonstrations in 67 towns and cities, though many have since been released.

Late on Sunday, the White House said in a statement that all parties should "calm the situation", and reaffirmed that peaceful demonstrations were "part of democratic expression".

The US previously criticised the security forces for their initial response to the protest.